C-SAM, a mobile technology firm, has announced a partnership with MasterCard to offer a contact-less mobile wallet solution in Africa, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. The white label mobile wallet solution, based on C-SAM’s Mobile Transaction Platform (MTP) claims to enable seamless integration with MasterCard’s pre-paid platform to offer PayPass Wallet Services and informational services.

The PayPass Wallet service allows users to pay for items online or in-store through a one-touch process. C-SAM also claims that the service will solve complexities of managing multiple mobile devices & operating systems, secure elements, and connections to multiple third party systems. The integrated service will offer telcos an NFC based solution that comes pre-packaged with prepaid instance issuance, TSM integration and coupon redemption at the point of sale and also offer a multi-channel payment wallet through PayPass Wallet Services.

US-based C-SAM, Inc. provides solutions in secure mobile transactions technology and offers a range of mobile phone based applications for financial as well as non-financial services. The company has operations in USA, Singapore, Japan and India. MasterCard, is a payments and technology company that operates in more than 210 countries and territories, the company claims. Its clients in India, include ICICI Bank, ING Vysya Bank, Jet Airways, Tata AIG an L&T, among others.

Other developments in mobile payments

While we agree that a single service will not dominate the mobile payment space, the development in this area is highly scattered. Everyone from telecom operators to credit card companies are trying to crack the mobile payment code yet there’s hardly any progress when it comes to mobile payment solution that fits the bill. Previously, Visa launched Visa payWave backed by Near Field Communications-enabled smartphones that allowed shoppers to pay for goods or services with just a wave or tap of their phone. The service is available in the US, Europe and Asia. Visa also partnered with Obopay to announce a collaboration to enable near real-time payment solutions for disbursing electronic funds to a prepaid card. It had also announced a partnership with Intel to offer an integrated mobile money solution for devices powered by its chip. Mobile VAS company Comviva had also announced a partnership with MasterCard to launch an open loop Mobile Money partnership program, allowing customers to access major financial services on their mobile phones.

Closer home, recently Airtel partnered with Axis bank to provide an open wallet solution where Airtel subscribers could even withdraw money from their wallet.